Drake and Josh Star Drake Bell Charged with Attempted Child Endangerment
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Drake Bell, who portrayed Drake in the hit Nickelodeon series Drake & Josh, is facing two counts of child endangerment crimes in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Bell, whose given first name is Jared, pleaded not guilty on Thursday, yet was indicted by a grand jury for “disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and attempted endangering children,” according to Cleveland’s Fox 8 News, which first reported the news.
According to court documents obtained by Fox 8, the alleged crimes occurred on December 1, 2017 — the same day Bell was scheduled to play at Ohio venue The Odeon.
“Just Announced: Cleveland, OH – Dec 1 at The Odeon Concert Club,” Bell wrote in a now-deleted 2017 tweet.
The actor allegedly engaged in a sexual and inappropriate conversation with the victim on that date, yet it is unclear what prompted the arrest four years later.
Records show that Bell was indicted on May 21, appearing in Cuyahoga County court on Thursday. Bell pleaded not guilty, and was released on a $2,500 bond, yet has agreed to have no contact with the alleged victim.
Bell is expected to face a judge during a pretrial hearing on June 23 via Zoom.
This is not the first time Bell has faced criminal charges, as he pleaded no contest in 2016 to driving under the influence within 10 years of another DUI conviction.
Bell was also accused of misconduct by ex-girlfriend Melissa Lingafelt, who claimed in an August 2020 Tik Tok video that the actor verbally and physically abused her.
“I moved in with him, I was singing,” said Lingafelt, who goes by the name Jimi Ono. “It wasn’t until about a year when the verbal abuse started. And when I say verbal abuse, imagine the worst type of verbal abuse you could ever imagine and that was what I got.”
Bell denied the allegations, claiming he did not do anything Lingafelt accused him of in the Tik Tok video.
“As our relationship ended—more than a decade ago—we unfortunately, both called each other terrible names, as often happens when couples are breaking up,” he said in a statement to People. “But that is it.”
